


Small Comforts

by Professional_Creeper



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Gender-neutral Reader, M/M, Pining, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29922606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Professional_Creeper/pseuds/Professional_Creeper
Summary: Series of unrelated Frederick Chilton x Reader drabbles
Relationships: Dr. Frederick Chilton/Reader, Dr. Frederick Chilton/You
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. Contempt

It takes Dr. Chilton a long time to figure out what is different about you.

He finds himself talking about things he would never normally share when he is in your presence. His heart rate drops by an average of five beats per second, and if he could test his blood pressure inconspicuously, he imagines he would find it lower as well.

It is odd.

Odd, but not unpleasant.

It is in a therapy session with Will Graham that he finally identifies the cause. Their little conversations are always a battle of Dr. Chilton's psychoanalysis skills versus Mr. Graham's ability to deflect and mislead—a careful dance of subtext and quid pro quos between captor and captive.

Mr. Graham, being a psychopath and further resentful of having been caught, never disguises his contempt. It's clear in his cold eyes and stinging barbs aimed with precision at the doctor's insecurities.

 _Contempt_.

It is clearest in his patients' eyes, but apparent in subtler hues in all his staff at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. In Alana Bloom and Jack Crawford, disguised under civility and politeness. In Dr. Lecter.

What he feels in your gaze is not the presence of anything in particular, but the lack of contempt.

You are the one person who does not think he is a monster or a fool. In your accepting company, the relief is great enough to produce tangible physical results in his respiration and pulse. You lower his cortisol levels.

But the strangest thing is, after he realizes this fact, something changes. Being in the same room with you causes his heart to accelerate so sharply he feels a throbbing pain in his chest.

It takes Dr. Chilton a long time to figure out what it means.


	2. Crying

Using your spare key, you slipped in, hoping to catch Frederick before he came home from work and be discovered naked on his bed, waiting for him like an unwrapped present. Instead, you heard the television (or rather, the bassy speaker system from his home theater) and followed the sound to its source.

You caught the end of Casa Blanca, and heavy tears streaming down Frederick’s face.

He never cried. Rarely displayed any emotion beyond disgust and smarmy superiority (if such a thing could be classed as an emotion). During your entire relationship, you only ever knew you had upset him when he became prickly and distant. And so, Frederick openly weeping at a cheesy old movie came as a shock.

A second later, he saw movement in his peripheral vision. His eyes went wide, then narrowed in anger, and then he turned away sharply to wipe them on his sleeve.

He was, suffice it to say, grumpy. Your _aww_ s and attempts to hug him were met with scowls, criticism, and him jerking away.

It was childish, really. A psychiatrist should not be this emotionally repressed, but that was how you discovered Frederick was not unfeeling, but pathological about _hiding_ his feelings.

It was more than merely concealing them you learned as you slowly got him to talk about it. If you were looking at him, offering him sympathy, he _couldn’t_ cry. He barely felt anything. It all boiled away into an oppressive, suffocating sense of annoyance.

A self-preservation mechanism was burned into him since childhood: never let them see you vulnerable.

“That sounds lonely,” you said.

He shrugged, his only response a dismissive, closed-mouth grunt.

“What if I don’t look at you?”

You were determined to learn how to comfort him—so you practiced. Not in a significant way, as if it were an urgent goal. Not knowing the misfortunes to come, getting Frederick to cry in front of you was an afterthought among the many busy things happening in your life. But when you watched emotional movies, when he had a hard day at work, or when social obligation forced him back in touch with his family, you practiced ignoring him in close proximity.

It was counterintuitive to you, who wanted to grip him tight to your chest and soothe his hair under your fingertips, but any indication that you _noticed_ he was sad resulted in him stiffening like a board and bristling with sarcasm.

Then he was gutted.

He was drugged, cut open, and operated on while conscious to witness it. He survived, but returned from the hospital five pounds lighter. Five pounds of intestine and kidney meat. A fresh red scar running up his torso. Feelings of weakness he couldn’t cope with.

When he screamed to be left alone, you told him you would be right in the next room if he needed anything. Close, but not looking.

“And I’ll come check on you in a half-hour. OK?”

His shoulders were trembling, facing away from you. He let out a wheeze that was almost a laugh, and suddenly raised a hand and gestured you closer. You wrapped your arms around his waist—carefully, careful of his fresh stitches—and rested your cheek against his back. A sob vibrated under you through his suit, but you didn’t hug him any tighter or stroke him soothingly. 

You just stayed with him, pretending he wasn’t there. His hand covered yours and squeezed it.

He cried.


	3. Mismatched

Sometimes it strikes you as odd that you could be dating a man whose socks always match his tie, when most days, your socks don’t even match your _socks._

Does it make you insecure? Yes. But there is something undeniably sweet when he groans and calls you a mess with that tiny, pressed smile threatening to break into a grin over his cheeks.

“You love it,” you tease, uncertain if he does—how he possibly could when he’s so much more _together_ than you. He’s so handsome and so meticulous, and you are so obviously out of your league with a man as perfect as him.

Then he tilts his face toward the ceiling, that tiny smirk still lighting his lips, and sighs in mock defeat, “I really do.”

“Really?”

He draws you toward him with a hand at the small of your back, warm and sure. “You’re _my_ mess,” he whispers just before he kisses you, and your heart melts at the completeness of his devotion.


	4. Skulking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a Five Minute Drabble challenge on Tumblr! (though I edited before posting it here)

Dr. Frederick Chilton was skulking about the halls of BSHCI again, doing nothing in particular. Hearing his cane echo through the marble halls. The click of the heels of his fine leather shoes. It helped just to keep everyone else on guard—to know that the grumpy, autocratic boss could show up around the corner at any moment.

It kept the staff on their toes.

But there was another reason Dr. Chilton emerged from the cocoon of his office, and it had nothing to do with intimidation, or surveying his domain, or studying the inmates.

It was because you were there, somewhere. He hadn’t built up the courage to speak to you yet, but he’d seen you—watched your bright smile on the security feed, smelled your citrus-scented hair wafting through the cold halls—and he knew he might just catch a glimpse of you again.

One day, maybe you would greet him. He would turn the corner and you would grace him with that smile, nervous and apologetic for almost running into him. And he would tell you it was nothing, and keep walking.

It would be a waste to rush things. To ask you for a date and scare you off.

For now, he thought, if he could just see your eyes meet his for a brief instant, the echoing marble halls would warm like a June day.


	5. Lullaby

It started with a low hum. His chest rumbled beneath your ear softly, vibrating upward into his throat. Then—you almost couldn’t believe what you were hearing—Frederick Chilton began to sing.

The melody was a quiet, sweet lullaby you weren’t familiar with or were too tired to recognize. Frederick’s arms held you safe and warm as you drifted to sleep, and he must have thought you were already asleep. That you wouldn’t remember.

When you _did_ remember it the next morning, he denied it ever happening. Tensed up every muscle in his high-strung body as he informed you (his neck flushed a blotchy red) that you dreamed it.

Maybe it _was_ only a dream. As much as you wished he would relax, he was the most self-conscious man you had ever met. The sort who had been shipped away to boarding school by aloof parents with impossibly high standards he was never able to meet, and as a result, was always looking over his shoulder, curating himself, avoiding any behavior that might be embarrassing. Like singing.

The next night, it was quiet as you fell asleep. After a week, you began to doubt it had ever happened.

One night, a month later, you were half-asleep in Frederick’s bed when a rumbling whisper started a lullaby tune. It was slow and breathy and a little off-key, but the gentlest tenor you had ever heard.

_Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me; starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee…_

You dared not stir for fear he would stop. The slightest movement made him freeze and listen, only resuming when your breathing was steady, and he was sure you were out. You wanted to stay and listen, you tried, but then his fingers caressed your hair, soothing the strands, and you could not resist the calming lull.

Frederick Chilton’s private emotions were like a stray animal—easily spooked. You couldn’t simply walk up and pet them without scaring them into hiding or getting bitten. You had to leave food out on the porch and slowly earn their trust little by little. So you didn’t mention the singing this time. Let him have his tenderness in privacy.

Every night from then on, he sang something old and beautiful as you fell asleep, with pining lyrics shadowed by the composer’s mortality. And every night, his voice became more sure and smooth.

_Sighing like the night wind and sobbing like the rain,—  
Wailing for the lost one that comes not again:  
Oh, I long for Jeanie, and my heart bows low,  
Never more to find her where the bright waters flow._

You nuzzled into his reverberating chest, surrounded by his scent and the wistful refrain. All your muscles relaxed as you inhaled him—that clean, classic, spicy fragrance dancing atop his unique musk.

He didn’t pause like he used to, but kept singing, pulling you closer until your parted lips were pressed to the vibrations of his salty throat.


End file.
